Monday, April 29, 2013

To men’s adventure magazine collectors, Eva Lynd is best known — by sight if not by name — as a favorite model of artist Norm Eastman.

She appeared on many of the classic cover paintings Eastman created for the “sweat magazine” subgenre of men’s pulp mags, including MAN’S BOOK, MAN’S EPIC, MAN’S STORY, MEN TODAY, NEW MAN and WORLD OF MEN (published by the Reese and EmTee companies).

On those covers, Eva usually “played” the iconic, scantily-clad damsel in distress being tortured by some evil Nazi or saved by some heroic GI.

Often, the sadistic fiend or hero was modeled on Steve Holland — the favorite male model of Eastman and many other illustration artists in the 1950s and 1960s.

In recent weeks, I’ve had the pleasure having an ongoing email dialogue with Eva about her varied and fascinating career as a model and actress. And, every week she has been surprising me with some new revelations.

For example, although I was aware of her modeling work for Norm Eastman, I didn’t know she had also modeled for some other famous illustration artists of the 1950s and 1960s.

Then one day she sent me a photo of an age-browned, two-page interior spread from a men’s adventure magazine that she had pasted in the pages of an equally age-browned scrapbook.

“I was the model for all of the women in this one and Steve Holland was the model for the men,” Eva told me. She also noted that the painting was by Al Rossi.

It was used for the story “KIMONO GIRLS CHECK IN AGAIN” in the May 1957 issue of KEN FOR MEN, one of the Diamond/Atlas magazines published by Magazine Management.

I asked Eva what she got paid for being an artist’s model in the late ‘50s.

“The going rate to model for illustration artists artist like Al and Norm back then was 25 dollars an hour,” Eva recalled. “And I was glad to get it.” (Indeed, $25 in 1957 adjusted for inflation would be about $200 today.)

Rossi did many illustrations for men’s adventure magazines. But he is probably best known for the cover paintings he did for risqué pulp paperbacks, including those that are sometimes derisively — and lovingly — referred to as “sleaze paperbacks.”

The most famous pulp paperback with a cover painting by Al Rossi is the 1953 Ace Double paperback edition of William Burroughs’ early novel JUNKIE (Ace D-15), published under the pseudonym William Lee. Rossi also did the cover painting for NARCOTIC AGENT, the book on the flip side of this now highly-valuable Ace double.

Until Eva told me, I didn’t know she had modeled for Rossi and she had almost forgotten it herself.

But as she looked back through her scrapbook, she recalled she modeled for Rossi during the same years she modeled for Eastman, during the periods when she lived in New York City from 1956 to 1958 and again from 1964 to 1968.

As Eva and I began exploring some of Rossi’s work it became apparent that he had used her for both men’s adventure illustrations and paperback cover paintings.

For example, Eva sent me a photo of another old tearsheet from a men’s adventure magazine that showed half of a two-page spread by Rossi, featuring a “close-up” of her. Though she didn’t recall what it was from, I was able to track it down.

It was used for a cool, noir-style story in the February 1957 issue of Magazine Management’s flagship periodical STAG.

Titled “LILY BRAZIL: WEEK-END GIRL,” it was excerpted from the 1956 paperback THE NAKED HOURS by Wenzell Brown. The novel featured a cover by Ray Johnson — another great illustration artist who did artwork for men’s adventure magazines during part of his career.

You can tell that the man in Al Rossi’s illustration for STAG is not based on Steve Holland and Eva didn't know who he was. You can also tell from the subhead that he’s in big trouble: “He woke up with a blonde stranger, and found himself on the road to murder.”

Eva also appears to be the model Rossi used for the imperious white jungle queen character in his illustration for “I WAS A SLAVE OF THE SAVAGE BLONDE.”

That wild, highly-entertaining “love slave” yarn was originally published in the Summer 1956 issue of HUNTING ADVENTURES.

I’m currently working with Eva and men’s adventure art maven Rich Oberg to try to ID all of the men’s pulp mag illustrations by Norm Eastman and Al Rossi that feature Eva.

Between Eva’s scrapbook and memories, Rich’s notes from conversations he had with Norm before he died, and the huge collection of men’s adventure paintings and magazines Rich owns, we have a good shot at finding most of them.

Confirming the list of paperback covers that feature Eva as a model will be harder.

“All the paperback books I had with me on the cover got ruined in a rainstorm when there was a leak in our garage a few years ago,” Eva told me.

We do know that Eva was a model for quite a few of Al Rossi’s paperback cover paintings. In fact, Eva sent me a series of intriguing reference photographs that Al Rossi took of her alone and her with Steve Holland.

“Al took photos from many angles in each photo session at that time,” Eva recalled. “He gave me a number of prints. But I mostly just have one from each photo session to compare with in looking at his illustrations and covers.”

Several of the photos Eva sent me clearly look like setups for pulp paperback covers. I haven’t been able to figure out which books they were all used for yet. However, I think I have IDed two of them.

One is a photo Rossi took of Eva and Steve Holland posed in a way that looks very similar to the couple in the cover painting he created for SUBURBIA AFTER DARK (1965), a racy paperback credited to Carlton Gibbs, a pseudonym of the prolific pulp writer Giff Cheshire. (Cheshire was a pulp pro who wrote everything from erotic novels to Westerns.)

I suspect Rossi used a different shot from that session with Eva and Steve as his reference photo for the SUBURBIA AFTER DARK cover art.

Another Rossi photo Eva sent me is an alluring shot of her on her back, viewed from above. “I don’t know what this became,” Eva said. “But it’s a nice shot.”

After some image searching online, I think I know. It looks to me like that photo came from the modeling session Rossi drew upon for his cover painting for THE EMPTY BED (1966), written by Louis Lorraine.

Coming soon: more posts with illustration art and glamour photography featuring the great Eva Lynd.

In the meantime, you can read “I WAS A LOVE SLAVE OF THE SAVAGE BLONDE” by buying a copy of the WEASELS anthology — or read “KIMONO GIRLS CHECK IN AGAIN” by clicking this link to download a PDF copy of the May 1957 issue of KEN FOR MEN from the MensPulpMags.com virtual newsstand.

This is a digital copy of the complete issue, in high resolution PDF format, featuring great pulp illustration art by Jim Bentley, Al Rossi, Rudy Nappi, Don Cavaliere, Julian Paul and other artists, cheesecake glamour pinup photos of Brandy Case by Irv Carsten, a gritty Western story by Dean Ballenger, a noir mystery yarn by Frank Kane, lots of gonzo vintage ads and cartoons, and other good old pulpy stuff...

Sunday, April 14, 2013

A few weeks ago I got an email about some previous posts I’d done on my blog about actress and model Eva Lynd.

It said:

“Hi Robert - I am well, alive and living in Hollywood. I just read all the fun stuff you have about me on your blog. It is nice to be remembered after all these years.”

It was signed by Eva Lynd.

To say that getting that note from Eva was a pleasant surprise would be a major understatement.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Eva Lynd was a favorite model of the great pulp illustration artist Norm Eastman.

Her image is featured in dozens of Eastman’s men’s adventure magazine cover paintings, including many of the iconic evil Nazi scenes he created.

In addition, pinup photos of Eva — taken by some of the best glamour photographers of the era, like Peter Basch, Earl Leaf and Jerry Yulsman — were published almost all of the top men’s adventure and “girlie” magazines.

On top of that, Eva was (and still is) an actress. She appeared on many popular television shows in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s and in cult classic movies.

She also played the famed “Girl in the Tube” in the classic Brylcreem commercial, one of the most famous TV ads ever made.

So, for an avid fan and chronicler of retro pop culture like me, getting an email from Eva Lynd was more than a just pleasant surprise. It was more like a mind-blowing thrill.

Since then, the thrill factor has increased exponentially.

After I received her first note, Eva and I began an ongoing correspondence.

With the help of her computer-savvy husband, actor Warren Munson, she has been sending me scans of photographs and magazine clippings from her personal collection.

She has also been telling me fascinating anecdotes about her life and the artists, actors and photographers she worked with.

One of the E-Team’s current missions is to inventory as many of the cover and interior illustrations Eva modeled for as possible, as well as her appearances in glamour photo spreads and on magazine covers.

Some of those images and anecdotes will show up on this blog in the weeks and months ahead. Others may eventually show up on a separate Eva Lynd website and in a future book.

In many Norm Eastman cover paintings, Eva is the female model and Steve Holland is the main male model. If you’re a fan of pulp magazines and paperbacks, you probably know Holland was a favorite model of many illustration artists in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Even if you don’t know him by name, you probably know his rugged face and hunky body.

He’s best known as the model James Bama used as Doc Savage for the Bantam paperback series. But his highly-recognizable, iconically-manly face has appeared in hundreds, maybe thousands, of magazine covers and interior illos and paperback cover paintings.

In Norm Eastman’s men’s adventure illustrations, Holland frequently served as the model for the hero in the scene. Sometimes he was the bad guy.

In some cases, he was both. For example, on the cover of the April 1966 issue of WORLD OF MEN, Steve Holland was the model for the sadistic Hitler Kommando who’s getting ready to use a belt on the blonde, played by Eva Lynd. Meanwhile, Holland is also the hero in the background who is knifing a Nazi soldier and coming to save Eva (who also modeled for the bound redhead in the scene).

Eastman also used himself as the model for villains and other characters.

In the his painting for the cover of the January 1965 issue of MAN’S PERIL, Eastman is the helicopter pilot. Eva Lynd was the model for the scantily clad damsel in distress hanging out of the helicopter door — as well as for the less fortunate, unrescued ladies in the background, who remain prisoners of “The Tattoo Gang” in the story the illustration goes with.

Steve Holland was the model for the manly hero who is holding on to Eva and shooting at the bad guys below.

Eva told me:

“I honestly don’t remember how I got to work with Norm Eastman. It is possible that the first time someone referred him to me as someone who needs models. I started working with him 1956 until 1958 when I went to California. Then again from 1964 when I returned to New York City until 1968 when I went back to California.

I loved working with Norm because he was always very professional and made the sessions a lot of fun. He always took lots of photos at each session.

I usually worked by myself or with the popular male model Steve Holland, who was also very easy to work with.”

Eva recalled that Eastman usually shot reference photos of her and Steve Holland together, at his in-home studio in New York City, for covers that she and Steve both appeared in.

She said Eastman didn’t take photos of her and other female models together, even though in some of his cover paintings he used images of both Eva and one of his other favorite models, Shere Hite and Lisa Karan. (As noted in previous posts here, Shere and Lisa were also favorite models of men’s adventure artist Bruce Minney.)

Rich Oberg, who visited with Eastman before he died, said Norm would often cut out photos of different female and male models and paste them up into a collage to create the scene he wanted to paint.

Rich noted that Norm also identified his artist friend Mark Schneider as the model for some of the evil Nazis and other villains in his cover paintings.

I’ll be sharing many more great illustrations and photos that feature Eva Lynd here in upcoming posts.

In the meantime, you can read the story about how Steve Holland and Norm Eastman ‘coptered in and saved Eva Lynd from the evil “Tattoo Gang” by clicking this link or the link below to download a complete digital copy of the January 1965 issue of MAN’S PERIL in my virtual newsstand.

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About Me

After retiring from forty years of work in the realm of public policy and politics, I now write three blogs (ThisDayinQuotes.com, QuoteCounterquote.com and MensPulpMags.com) and co-edit the Men's Adventure Library series of books published by New Texture (www.NewTexture.com). Those books — on Amazon here > bit.ly/RobertDeis — feature stories and artwork from my collection of more than 5,000 vintage men's pulp adventure magazines. I live near Key West with my beautiful wife, Barbara Jo, and our three dogs and five cats.

My Other Sites

This Day in QuotesThe famous quotes linked to each day of the yearQuoteCounterquote.comOrigins, witty uses and abuses of famous quotationsWeaselsRipped.comPreview of our WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! men's adventure magazines story anthologyWalterKaylin.comPreview of our anthology of men's adventure magazines stories by the great Walter KaylinMensCrypto.comPreview of our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY, the first ever colleciton of men's adventure magazine stories about Bigfoot, Sasquatch and other legendary monsters